Russia’s strategic objectives

[Chwyatt]

What do you think Russia is trying to say with these, now regular, flights of Bear bomber/surveillance aircraft towards UK, Norwegian and Alaskan airspace?

I have heard the phrase “to be respected as a great power”, but what does that actually mean?

Could this be an attempt to decouple western Europe from the US via intimidation?

A reaction to a view in Moscow that the US ignores Russian opinion and is flexing muscles accordingly?

Could it be related to Litvinenko? Flexing muscles to silence criticism?

Could it even be that Russia wants to replace the US as the world’s hyperpower?

Or just playing to an audience in Russia that want’s to see muscle flexing? Just a PR exercise




And do you think this will all just blow over, or that we are verging on a new cold war?

[PaulClift]

I think theres abit of Russia trying to look big on the world stage once more, but mainly its because they can now afford to do these sort of excercies/missions once more.

[Switek]

Internal issues (only): Dec. 2007 elections to Duma (Russian parliament) and what's the most important presidential elections in 2008.

[TheArmenian]

I agree with PrivatePyle.

I believe the Russians are doing these flights for a number of reasons:

- Internal propaganda: The Russian government wants to tell its population "we are strong" and "your government is strong and is doing a good job".

- External propaganda: The Russian government wants to tell the world "Russia is strong again" and "remember the times when there were 2 superpowers".

- Foreign diplomacy : They are telling the West "You get close to our borders by expanding NATO eastwards, we do the same by flying our bombers close to your's".

- Training : Thanks to booming Russian economy, the Airforce now has a greater budget and can fly more training missions. What better training than a close to realistic flights over the Atlantic (close to NATO).

- Inteligence gathering: Probing NATO defenses (testing response times, analyzing procedures etc.)


I don't think it has anything to do with the Litvinenko case as they already did a tit for tat (expelling diplomats in retaliation of their own diplomats being expelled).

[Billy No Mates]

I think they see it as rebalancing the scales,NATO has gone east so now they can afford it they are going to go west i can't see it heralding a new cold war it looks more like confidence regained than aggresion renewed .

[GromGrad]

God can there be one thing written by a Brit that doesn't mention Litvinenko? How did you guys ever survive that tragedy? And please stop using nonsense words like hyperpower, it legitimatizes the political circle jerkers who made it up. If only you read the nonsense this term came from you'd feel as embarrassed as i am right now for reading that.

As for Russia, its simple, it doesn't want to be any one's bitch, it wants to be stable and self reliant. What this means is that it is going to continue to make money for it self and going to try to spook people here and there for a good laugh. Nothing empties the coffers faster then a war so don't worry, there wont be any Russian tanks coming to a town near you any time soon. Russia is all about money right now, they wont risk any thing that will **** with that.

[MZKT]

What do you think Russia is trying to say with these, now regular, flights of Bear bomber/surveillance aircraft towards UK, Norwegian and Alaskan airspace?

I have heard the phrase “to be respected as a great power”, but what does that actually mean?

Could this be an attempt to decouple western Europe from the US via intimidation?

A reaction to a view in Moscow that the US ignores Russian opinion and is flexing muscles accordingly?

Could it be related to Litvinenko? Flexing muscles to silence criticism?

Could it even be that Russia wants to replace the US as the world’s hyperpower?

Or just playing to an audience in Russia that want’s to see muscle flexing? Just a PR exercise




And do you think this will all just blow over, or that we are verging on a new cold war?

If you have strategic aviation, you need to train it, otherwise those planes are only useless metal. Russia didn't stopped the flights because it wanted to, or because NATO-countries became friendlier towards Russia rofl. The only reason was lack of money, and now with available funds they resumed the flights.

BTW USA reguralry perform surveillance flights along the chinese border and chinese aren't whining about "new cold war" etc.

[Horizon]

U.S. containment policy developed into a principled opposition to the Soviet ratcheting of its sphere of influence, continue even the cold war has ended, and Russia has stepped away from communism from this era.
All Russian bases in Eastern Europe have been evacuated, while in the same time Americans bases in western Europe have not been dismantled, and plans have been made to make or relocates new bases in eastern Europe.
Even the "eternal" Russia sphere of influence have been aggressively lobbied to quit Russia, and look for partners in the west.

One may ask where is E.U independence, since the E.U has all capabilities to defend itself, and want to be a major and heard political power to deal with any international crisis.The U.S not only disrupt Russia, but Europe too, moving its military power inside the normally E.U sphere like the Balkans, Turkey.The U.S have been able to invade militarily Iraq without declaring war.

Russia try to exits in a world dominated by the U.S.